York's race riots were a war that left dozens injured and two people dead

Fifty years ago, racial tension, poverty and police hostility caused unrest in the city of York.

Sean Heisey, York Daily Record

In 1968 and 1969, there was a war on in York. Those two summers were marked by what became known as the York race riots.

We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of this unrest, and people often assume everyone knows what happened.

This is perhaps the most memorable -
and most used - photograph coming from the 1969 riots.

This is perhaps the most memorable -
and most used - photograph coming from the 1969 riots.

York County History Center

Well, 50 years is a long time to remember anything, if you even knew about these influential moments in the first place.

Having said that, memories of those days of distress are burned in the minds of some people afflicted by callous cops and other injustices at the time. And some folks still won't go downtown because of their perceptions dating to those days 50 years ago.

So here's an explanation of those moments that shaped the York community, plus a look at what have become known as the race riot trials 30 years later.

To be sure, York was not the only American city to face these times. York County was the destination for many black people from the South as part of the Great Migration after about 1915. The movement peaked about 1930, when Crispus Attucks Community Association organized to provide social and recreational services. Two segregated elementary schools went up at that time. By the 1960s, poor social and economic conditions faced by local people of color contributed to the York riots.

Now for the incompetent mayor and his and the police's unabashed use of police dogs, the K-9 Corps:

As mayor, John L. Snyder was from another time. Literally. He served in that position in the 1940s, missed a decade and then held York's mayoral post for most of the complex 1960s.

George Shumway, a printer and keen observer about those years, was less charitable. Snyder governed, he said, "as if the 20th century had never taken place."

And those dogs, used by police to subdue people they considered perps? They were unpopular in the black community from the time they were trotted out in 1962.

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What kicked off the two summers of unrest?

On July 11, 1968, about 50 black youths occupied Penn Park in what police viewed as a disorderly assembly.

A series of altercations between the young people and police ensued, and the unrest spread out. After a rock bounced off a police cruiser, a patrolman fired a shot into the air in an attempt to stop fleeing offenders.

That set off days of violence between police and black youths.

After the summer of 1968 ended, the state Human Relations Commission identified the main causes of the violence: a police force that generated hostility, housing discrimination and other such findings.

What happened in the riots of 1969 that left Allen and Schaad dead and scores injured?

July 17, 1969: The riots began when a black youth, Taka Nii Sweeney, 17, was shot in the abdomen and whisked to York Hospital in serious condition. He recovered. Actually, tensions were flamed before that action when a 12-year-old black youth claimed that a gang had doused him with gasoline. In fact, that claim was false; he burned himself playing with lighter fluid. But that set the stage for a rumble between black youths and a white gang. Sweeney, part of a group of black youths, was stopped by a police officer when a sniper wounded him. "That is how the violence of the summer of 1969 began," researcher Jeffrey Hawkes later wrote.

July 18: York City Police Officer Henry C. Schaad, 22, was shot while patrolling in one of the city's two armored trucks. He died Aug. 1.

July 19: Snyder declared a state of emergency. State police were called in to assist York City Police in fighting the violence.

July 21: Lillie Belle Allen, 27, visiting her sister in York from her hometown of Aiken, S.C., was shot and killed on North Newberry Street.

July 22: National Guard troops rolled into town and Gov. Raymond P. Shafer declared a state of emergency.

July 23: The violence ebbed.

The North Newberry Street railroad tracks where Lillie Belle Allen was killed in 1969.

The North Newberry Street railroad tracks where Lillie Belle Allen was killed in 1969.

Why were the shooters not arrested and brought to justice?

"Everyone knew who was involved," Robertson told Time magazine. "But everyone just thought it was even. One black had been killed and one white – even."

Why didn't rioting erupt in the summer of 1970?

Some credit the York Charrette as the salve that eased the pain. This week-long event, tagged as a form of civic group therapy by a national publication, borrowed its name from the French "little cart." Picture this: An architect being pushed to an appointment in a cart with his rolls of drawings as he's cramming to finish his designs.

The Charrette was a cram session to deal with the problems behind the problems.

The Charrette, managed by a black man from the South – William L. Riddick – helped assemble all sectors of the community. They came together to intensely work on besetting community issues such as affordable housing, health service for the poor and public transportation.

And to address the deployment of those police dogs.

Rioting stopped after 1969, but the K-9 Corps continued, as seen in this 1970 picture. The issue of ...more

Rioting stopped after 1969, but the K-9 Corps continued, as seen in this 1970 picture. The issue of police dogs was a big topic in the York Charrette in the spring of 1970. The K-9 Corps was discontinued in 1973.

With the upcoming 50th anniversary of the race riots, the candidates talk about how we should remember it.

York Daily Record

What prompted race riot trials 30 years later?

Every five years, newspapers in York ran retrospectives about the riots. In 1999, determined prosecutors in the York County District Attorney's Office read them and decided, at last, justice needed to be meted out.

Remember that the shooters of Allen and Schaad had never been brought to justice. And in 1996, Rusk pointed out that York was in the top tier of U.S. cities in concentration of poverty.

In the 1990s, York elected and re-elected another mayor who was not equipped to deal with these and other unrelenting city problems. As we shall see, this mayor, Charlie Robertson, would become part of court proceedings in connection with Allen's 1969 death.

And by now, young, aggressive prosecutors and a brave, veteran district attorney were ready to take on the politically sensitive issue of prosecuting a 30-year-old case that would no doubt roil the city and reach into the city's top office.

Robert Messersmith is pictured in 2001 on the night of his arraignment for criminal homicide in the ...more

Robert Messersmith is pictured in 2001 on the night of his arraignment for criminal homicide in the July 1969 murder of Lillie Belle Allen, a black woman, who was shot during a week race riots in York. Messersmith fired the shot that killed Allen, prosecutors said.

York Daily Record

What happened in court?

In 2001, District Attorney Stan Rebert and assistant DA Tom Kelley and other prosecutors, acting on a grand jury recommendation, brought charges against a group of 10 white men – most of them involved with gangs at the time of the riots – in the death of Allen.

Those defendants were:

Robert N. Messersmith, 68, who was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced to nine to 19 years in state prison. He was paroled in October 2011.

Gregory H. Neff, 69, who also was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 4 1/2 to 10-years in prison. He was paroled in April 2007.

Former York City Police Officer and former York Mayor Charlie Robertson, who was tried along with Messersmith and Neff and was acquitted of first- and second-degree murder. He died in York on Aug. 24, 2017 at age 83.

Arthur Messersmith, 64, who pleaded to criminal attempt with the intent to kill and conspiracy to commit an unlawful act and was sentenced to 1 1/2 to three years. He was paroled in fall 2005.

Rick L. Knouse, who pleaded to conspiracy to commit an unlawful act was sentenced to nine to 23 1/2 months. He was paroled in May 2003 and, in June 2005, died of natural causes at the age of 52.

Clarence “Sonny” Lutzinger, 65, who pleaded to conspiracy to commit an unlawful act and was sentenced to nine to 23 1/2 months. He was paroled in February 2003 but was sent back to prison in October 2003 for a parole violation. He was paroled again in February 2004.

Chauncey Gladfelter, 65, who pleaded to conspiracy to commit an unlawful act and was sentenced to three to 23 1/2 months. He was paroled in February 2003.

Thomas P. Smith, 66, who pleaded to conspiracy to commit an unlawful act and was sentenced to three to 23 1/2 months. He was paroled in February 2003.

William C. Ritter, who pleaded to conspiracy to commit an unlawful act and was sentenced to nine to 23 1/2 months. He was paroled in August 2003. He died at the age of 54 on Aug. 16, 2006, from a gastrointestinal hemorrhage caused by chronic alcoholism.

Ezra Slick, who died of cancer at age 55 in December 2005 while serving a two-to-five-year sentence at Laurel Highlands State Correctional Institution in Somerset for criminal attempt with the intent to kill and conspiracy to commit an unlawful act.

In 2001, then York mayor Charlie Robertson was charged in the 1969 murder of Lillie Belle Allen. In the following footage, Robertson proclaims his innocence at a press conference after the charges were filed. Robertson was eventually acquitted of the murder charge. Footage courtesy Associated Press.

Associated Press/York Daily Record

Robertson was later acquitted of the charge after a trial. The rest pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial.

The DA also charged three blacks in the death of Schaad. Two men - Stephen Freeland and Leon "Smickel" Wright - were convicted by jury of second-degree murder.

The third man - Michael "Picklenose" Wright, Leon Wright's brother - was charged after he was called to the stand as a prosecution witness and unexpectedly admitted that he, his brother, and Freeland all had fired at the armored vehicle carrying Schaad.

Freeland died Oct. 24, 2005, at age 53 from a blood disorder while serving nine to 19 years.

Leon Wright died of a stroke Dec. 13, 2005, at age 57 while serving a 4 1/2-to-10-year prison sentence.

Michael Wright served 86 days for the shooting. He was found shot to death on Nov. 18, 2005, in his Baltimore apartment, which was on fire.

And the city, with private investments, began rebuilding its downtown core, a gentrification trend that is accelerating today.

The city on the 50th anniversary of the riots?

But some York residents will tell you that the race riot trials did not bring true closure, that the concentration of poverty has not been adequately addressed and that crime relating to drug activity is hampering the city's progress.

The more optimistic might point to the fact that, on the day the gang members shot Lillie Belle Allen, men walked on the moon for the first time. The big concept is that if we can send men to the moon, we can win the battle over racial discrimination and drugs. Indeed, if we can go to the moon, we can win both whole wars.

A youth caucus as part of the York Charrette. The Charrette has been described as a kind of civic ...more

A youth caucus as part of the York Charrette. The Charrette has been described as a kind of civic group therapy. Reforms in affordable housing, health care and public transportation came in the aftermath of the Charrette. Most importantly, the summer of 1970 was free of rioting.

George Shumway, "Charrette of York, Pa."

To learn more

Sources: James McClure's "Almost Forgotten," Jeffrey S. Hawkes' master's thesis "J.W. Gitt's Last Crusade: Demise of the York Gazette and Daily, 1861-1970," York Daily Record files, Raul Urrunaga's “The York Charrette, April 19-27, 1970,” Journal of York County Heritage, 2012.

*Edited, 1/15/18

1969 York race riots

In the summers of 1968 and 1969, race riots raged in York, leaving dozens injured and two people dead. At the time, no one was charged in the killings of Lillie Belle Allen, a black woman from South Carolina who was visiting family, and Henry Schaad, a York City Police officer.

Thirty years later, York’s daily newspapers published a look back at the 1969 riots and the two unsolved murders. After the stories appeared, officials reopened the case. Later, a grand jury was impaneled to investigate the murders, eventually leading to criminal cases.